Derek Wise

The Axiom-I private astronaut mission that launched on April 8 was only supposed to be a ten day journey. After weather delayed their return, the Axiom crew is back on Earth, making way for NASA and ESA astronauts to take their place.

Booster 7 is SpaceX‘s most recent Super Heavy booster to undergo testing, and a newly leaked photograph shows pretty serious damage inside the booster.

Jeff Babione, a former VP at Lockheed Martin, has joined Sierra Space as the company’s new COO.

Rocket Lab announced a new agreement to launch fifteen satellites for HawkEye 360, a Virginia-based geospatial analytics company. The first of these mission, which will be a rideshare mission, is expected to launch no earlier than December 2022, and will be the company’s first launch from the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia.

In the early afternoon on Monday, April 18, the Crew-4 Astronauts, three NASA astronauts and an ESA astronaut, arrived at Kennedy Space Center ahead of their launch to the International Space Station scheduled for Saturday morning.

The first launch of SLS, on Artemis I, has been a long time coming. With the SLS that will launch for Artemis I at the pad for its wet dress rehearsal, teams have resumed the test that was cut short last week due to valve issues.

In a ceremony on Monday, Rocket Lab broke ground on a new facility for the company’s upcoming Neutron rocket. Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck was joined by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, the director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Dennis Andrucyk, the director of Wallops Flight Facility Dave Pierce, and others for the groundbreaking ceremony.

Axiom’s customer missions go beyond what suborbital tourist missions like New Shepard can offer. Riding in a SpaceX Dragon capsule, the Ax-1 crew is now on its way to the International Space Station after an on-time liftoff at 11:17 a.m. ET on Friday, April 8.

Human spaceflight has a relatively short history over the past ~60 years, but the Saturn rocket has a major position towards the start of it. Now, a major piece of that history has been destroyed because nobody wanted to pay the $250,000 to move the booster and NASA didn’t bother to keep it preserved.

By far the most commonly asked question on SpaceX’s Starlink service seems to be “when can I get it!” There are many locations around the US that are currently waitlisted, but some have Starlink currently available. Now, Starlink’s website has gained a map that shows where Starlink can accept new customers and where you must wait.

SpaceX’s long in-progress mesh Wi-Fi router is here at last, allowing select Starlink customers to easily extend their Wi-Fi internet reach without excess cables or setup. For now, however, it seems to be a more limited beta test.

SpaceX’s reflight of Falcon 9 boosters has allowed the company to become the unchallenged victor in terms of launch cadence. The company had 31 launches in 2021 and is aiming to nearly double that this year.

Sierra Space has hired Troy Lahr, a former Boeing executive, to be the company’s Chief Financial Officer. He joins the company in what will be a year of massive growth as Sierra Space prepares for the launch of its Dream Chaser spaceplane early next year.

The FAA has now officially delayed the issuing of its Programmatic Environmental Assessment until April 29, 2022 – the previous date was March 28. This is yet another delay in the environmental process necessary for Starship to take its orbital flight – though this environmental process is not what is holding SpaceX’s launch back.

SpaceX just increased the cost of its Starlink internet service. The already pricey service has had its hardware and software costs raised. The service will increase from $100 per month to $110 per month starting in May. This coincides with the company increasing the minimum cost to fly on one of its rideshare mission.

SpaceX has had a long-time partner in Spaceflight Inc. While SpaceX is the actual launch provider, providing rockets and launching payloads into space, Spaceflight Inc. organizes and integrates rideshare missions so multiple payloads can launch on individual rockets. Now, according to SpaceNews.com, SpaceX has cut ties with Spaceflight Inc.

After months and months of delays, and numerous rumors regarding the fate of SpaceX’s first Starship/Booster pair to be fully stacked, Elon Musk tweeted a wealth of new information about the company’s first orbital Starship flight.

NS-20, Blue Origin’s fourth human flight, is set to launch in just over a week. We’ve been waiting for the announcement of the sixth crew member after Pete Davidson left the crew. Now, that sixth crew member has been announced: Gary Lai, the senior director and chief architect of New Shepard, will be riding the vehicle he’s spent so long designing into space.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the world’s sanctions to the country, led the country to refuse to launch OneWeb satellites on a Soyuz rocket unless OneWeb agreed to almost unreachable terms. Thankfully, the company has now found a somewhat unlikely ally in SpaceX, which has its own Starlink satellites that compete with OneWeb.